The updated results of Cassini Grand Finale Mission

Wei-Ling Tseng^1*, O.J. Tucker², R.E. Johnson³, Wing-Huen Ip⁴

¹Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
²Goddard, NASA, USA
³Material Sciences, University of Virginia, USA
⁴Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, Taiwan

* Presenter:Wei-Ling Tseng, email:wltseng@ntnu.edu.tw

During the Cassini Grand Finale mission, this spacecraft, for the first time, has done the in-situ measurements of Saturn’s upper atmosphere and its rings and provides critical information for understanding the interaction between the main rings and the Saturnian system. The main rings have strong interaction with Saturn’s atmosphere and ionosphere possibly through the grain impacts, neutral diffusion and current exchange. The data now coming from Cassini Grand Finale mission already shed light on the dominant physics and chemistry in this region of Saturn’s magnetosphere, for example, the presence of carbonaceous molecules around the main rings (i.e., the INMS data; Waite et al., 2018) and a large amount of nano-sized grains (i.e., the MIMI data; Mitchel et al., 2018). With the updated Cassini measurements, we will revisit the details in the ring atmosphere/ionosphere model to study, such as the possible sources for the organic material (e.g., CO, CO2, CH4) and the neutral-grain-plasma interaction processes.

Keywords: planet, rings, plasma, atmosphere, dust